Perfect Grilled Veggies

Grilled veggies are the perfect side for your Memorial Day Picnic

Do you have a distinct memory of the first time that you thought you were an adult? My first memory of feeling like an adult centered around food.

When I was about seven or eight years old, my family hosted an exchange student from Thailand. When we hosted her, my mom started cooking tons of stir fries. It seems like we ate stir fry every night that Tum lived with us, and after that, my mom didn't throw in the towel with the stir fries because she rightly thought that stir fry is pretty much the most delicious weekday meal that you can make.

I didn't mind the stir fry craze that was sweeping the kitchen, but there was one part that I didn't like... the vegetables. I tried really hard to be a good healthy kid, but I didn't like how the vegetables tasted in the sauce. Now this is not to say that my mom did a poor job cooking vegetables.  No, my mom is one of the most wonderful vegetable chefs that I know.  I simply did not like the vegetables in stir fry; I only liked vegetables raw.

This distaste persisted for years, mostly as a repressed feeling as I sadly ate an appropriate serving of vegetables, so I could guiltlessly indulge in the delicious meat, rice and sauce.  If I complained about the vegetables, I apologize.

Then in eighth grade, my friend Laura broke her femur.  She was regulated to a wheel chair for the entire summer, so I biked over to her house every day and we hung out.  We made caramel corn, did puzzles, read Gone with the Wind, and otherwise passed the time doing not that active of activities.

One afternoon, she asked me to pick a few snap peas from her parents garden, which I did, and then she decided that I would make stir fry for our lunch.  It would be a vegetarian stir fry since the internet told us horror stories about Salmonella poisoning and E. Coli, so we were terrified of touching chicken lest we kill ourselves in the process.

I wasn't overly fond of the idea, but I didn't have any better one (no pizza in the freezer), so I went with it.  I don't remember the exact ingredients, but it was pretty basic. Maybe just a little sweet and sour sauce and some soy sauce in a frying pan with a few vegetables, but the aroma was enticing.

I remember watching the vegetables cook and thinking, "I want to eat this. I actually want to eat vegetables."

I felt so responsible, cooking a nutritious meal for me and my friend, and when we sat down to eat, I downed that plate of vegetables, and I liked it!  Right then and there, I felt like and adult because I liked vegetables.

That day was a turning point for me, and since then, I've started to love vegetables, and I enjoy making them the star of my meal especially when I don't have to sacrifice flavor.

These grilled vegetables are my quintessential example where the vegetables are the star.  Sure, we will eat rice or chicken or something else with these vegetables, but honestly a plate groaning with these vegetables is just about the perfect summer meal for me.  The balsamic vinaigrette marinade imparts an almost meaty quality to the mushrooms, and it brings out the natural sweetness of the others, and a charcoal grill gives these veggies a smoky flavor.  

The peppers end up smoky, sweet and acidic; the mushrooms are tender and meaty, and the strength of the onions gets neutralized by the marinade and the grill resulting in a sweet, mildly pungent side.  I can't quite find the word to describe the squash and zucchini, so I am going to say that grilling them brings out the planty flavor that I couldn't quite get enough of, so I kept coming back for more and more and more.

My recipe has been adapted from Julie and Charles Mayfields' book Paleo Comfort Foods which is one of the best cookbooks in my arsenal, and I don't even pretend to eat Paleo. (Link is an Amazon Affiliate).

When you make these veggies, make more than you can possibly eat, because they make the best leftovers.  For example tomorrow I will share a chicken and veggie wrap, or you can make a seriously awesome omelette with any remaining veggies.

You know who else loves vegetables? My little man.

He looks like such a little man now.

Do you have any food=adulthood moments? If so let me know in the comments.

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Grilled Veggies

by Hannah Rounds May-20-2014

These perfect grilled veggies are the perfect side for your summertime picnics

Ingredients

• 3 Small Zucchini - Thinly slice lengthwise
• 4 Small Summer Squash - Thinly slice lengthwise
• 1 Red Onion - Thickly Sliced
• 5-6 Mini Sweet Red Peppers - Sliced
• 12 Mushrooms- Sliced
• 1/2 Cup Balsamic Vinegar
• 1/4 Cup Olive Oil
• 1 Teaspoon Garlic Powder
• 1 Teaspoon Salt
• 1 Teaspoon Pepper
• 1 Tablespoon Italian Seasoning

Instructions

1. Place mushrooms and peppers in a small bowl, and squash, zucchini and onions in a larger bowl.2. Whisk balsamic, oil, and spices thoroughly.3. Pour 2/3 of marinade on squash and onion mixture, and pour the rest onto the mushroom and pepper marinade4. Let veggies marinade for at least 30 minutes.5. Lay zucchini, squash and onions on open grill with a low flame.6. Place Onions and peppers on foil or a grill pan also over a low flame.7. After about 8-10 minutes flip zucchini, squash and onions.8. After another 5-7 minutes begin removing vegetables. They should be tender but not limp.

Details

Prep time: 15 mins Cook time: 15 mins Total time: 1 hour Yield: 4 Generous Servings

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Texas Caviar

Texas Caviar: Only you can decide if this is a salad or dip.

Texas Caviar is an all time favorite recipe from my childhood.  I remember being up at my grandparent's cabin and eating enormous mixing bowls full of it with my cousins over the Fourth of July weekend every year.  When my cousin, Bjorn, first brought his girlfriend, Ann, up to the cabin, she volunteered to bring a dip.  She brought the world's most enormous container of Texas Caviar.  My other cousin and I took a test bite, and then another, just to be sure it was as delicious as it seemed.

As soon as Ann was out of the room, my cousin said to me, "I can tell she's a keeper; look at how much salsa she brought!"

Sure enough, the next summer Bjorn and Ann got married.

Texas Caviar is an awesomely popular and widely adapted recipe, and this recipe comes to you courtesy of my Mom's best friend Jeri.  

I have, of course, taken more than my fair share of liberties with the recipe, but I think we can all agree that a great recipe like this is like a great house.  You might change from Victorian furniture, to shag carpet, to DIY vintage, but the bones of the house stay the same.  It's the same thing with this recipe.  I might have added a few ingredients, and subbed out a few ingredients, but the heart of the recipe remains the same.

My riff on Jeri's recipe reminds me of one of my favorite passages in Bread and Wine by Shauna Niequist, a book that my mom gave to me for mother's day. Niequist writes, "I'm not really a recpie girl. My Mom teases me about it, knowing that when I say I used a recipe, all it means is that at some point, some list of ingredients and techniques were involved as I threw things in pans, as I sliced, poured, salted and peppered with seeming randomness.  She does not particularly appreciate this cooking style, and sometimes she has to leave the kitchen because my loosey-goosey approach makes her nervous."

When I was making this Texas Caviar, I had a hard time deciding if it was a salsa or a salad. I've landed on both, but mainly because we ran out of chips, and I did not want even a single bite of this delicious dish go to waste.  

The black eyed peas and garbanzo beans form the tender and mild backbone of this Texas Caviar, but the real flavor party starts to happen when you add sweet peppers and ripe corn, the lightly acidic bite of grape tomatoes.  Creamy, rich avocados contrast with the sweet and acidic vegetables, and the pungent zest of red onions and cilantro highlights all of the flavors.  But to make this dish sing, you really need Jeri's balsamic vinaigrette. Her dressing is a perfectly simple and balanced dressing that soaks into the beans and the vegetables causing each distinct flavor to harmonize, like a very small symphony...in my belly.

The specific recipe I made is below, but leave a comment to let me know your favorite adaptations.  I'm going to be making this again on Saturday, and I'm always looking to try something new.

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Texas Caviar

by Hannah Rounds May-19-2014

Texas Caviar is a bean salsa. Perfect for eating with tortilla chips, or not. Depending on how you're feeling that day.

Ingredients

• 2 Cans or 1 Cup Dried Black Eyed Peas- Cooked
• 1 Can or 2/3 Cup Dried Garbanzo Beans- Cooked
• 1 Cup Fresh or Frozen Corn Kernels
• 1 Cup Grape Tomatoes- Diced
• 1 Small Red Onion- Diced
• 1 Avocado- Diced
• 1/2 Bunch Cilantro- Finely Diced
• 1/4 Cup Balsamic
• 1/4 Cup Olive Oil
• 1.5 Tablespoons Sugar
• 1 Teaspoon Salt

Instructions

1. Mix beans, vegetables, and cilantro in a very large bowl.2. Whisk Balsamic, olive oil, sugar and salt until well combined3. Gently pour dressing over vegetables and mix until everything is soaked.4. Refrigerate for at least two hours to allow vegetables to marinate before serving.

Details

Prep time: 20 mins Cook time: 2 hour Total time: 2 hour 20 mins Yield: 10 Servings

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Naan Bread

Naan, Naan, Hey, Hey, Hey...Good Bread!

Did you notice the food pun in the caption? It's supposed to refer to the song that you hear at baseball games (for a history of the song which I have not verified, read this blog).  

Speaking of hilarious food puns, I'm going to do my first ever giveaway on this blog.  Whoever most accurately describes my humor in the comment section of this blog post wins ten bags of my charisma valued at $19.99 each and one exclusive picture of Littlest.  To help you understand just how valuable of a prize this is, I present to you the second most adorable picture of Littlest that I took today.  Just imagine how great first prize will be.

How can you resist those big blue eyes? You cannot.

Now that I've tempted you with a giveaway, provided link bait to another one of my posts, and generated value add content, I've almost completed my blog post to do list.  The only things left are to provide a second outbound link (Here's one to my favorite Buzzfeed of the week), and describe the drool-worthy food featured above.

Onto the real purpose of this blog post (is the recipe the point, or the link bait? You will never know).

Let's talk about Naan bread for a minute.  When most people eat Naan or a closely related flatbread cousin, they think, "I want to eat all the bread!!!!"

It's so delicious that for a long time, I thought that there must be some complicated trick for making it.  It turns out that it requires no trick at all.  Not even patience, which for those of us still growing in our Fruits of the Spirit, this is a great thing. 

For something that is incredibly simple to make, its perfectly divine to eat. Many areas of the world are more well known for their bread making expertise, but I think that India has gotten the shaft on that front.  I personally believe that Naan is the best unsweetened bread experience, anywhere, ever, period.

The soft chew of the interior and light crisp of the air bubbles make this bread the perfect texture.  Naan has all the flavor of freshly baked white bread, but the exact perfect density of the bread along with the complete lack of crust thrusts the entire Naan into exclusive space that it shares with only the interior of a French baguette.  Yes, the part that I tear out and bunch into a ball before eating. You do that to, so don't lie.

The best part about homemade naan is the ease with which you can make it.  It's a single rise dough, so you can go from dough to bread in about an hour and a half max.  Additionally, the ingredients are so...normal.  There is not a special thing on the list (unless you don't eat yogurt or keep yeast on hand).

Do yourself a favor and make this bread today!  You will thank me.  Oh, and if you comment below this post, I'll send you a free bag of charisma too.

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Homemade Naan Bread

by Hannah Rounds May-7-2014

This is the easiest recipe for delicious homemade naan bread, and it contains no weird ingredients at all.

Ingredients

• 2 Teaspoons Yeast
• Generous 1/2 Cup Warm Water
• 1 Tablespoon Sugar
• 1 Egg
• 1/4 Cup Olive Oil
• 1/4 Cup Full Fat Plain Yogurt
• 2 Teaspoons Salt
• 3 Cups Flour + More For sprinkling

Instructions

1. Combine Yeast, warm water (1/2 cup only to start), and sugar in a large mixing bowl and allow yeast to bubble for about ten minutes. Caution- If your yeast isn't bubbly its dead (or you might have killed it with too hot of water. Start over now, or you will feel sad).2. Add egg, olive oil, yogurt and salt to the yeast and mix thoroughly.3. Slowly add the flour until you have to knead with your hands. To add all three cups of flour you may need a bit more warm water. The dough should be moist but not sticky, and it should be fairly easy to knead.4. Set your dough aside for a minute, give your mixing bowl a quick rinse, then rub the interior with some oil.5. Put your dough back in the bowl, and cover your dough with plastic wrap. Place the dough in a warm location and allow it to double in size. On a warm day this could be just 45 minutes, but on a cold day it could take two hours.6. Divide dough into 6 sections, and roll each dough to about 1/4 inch thick on a well floured surface.7. Heat butter or olive oil in a very hot skillet.8. Add one dough section to the pan and let it cook for about 45-90 seconds (long enough for large bubbles to form but short enough so it doesn't burn). Flip the bread and let it cook for about 30 seconds on the other side. Repeat with the rest of the dough, adding more oil to the pan when necessary.

Details

Prep time: 15 mins Cook time: 1 mins Total time: 2 hour Yield: 6 Naan

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Spinach Salad with Ginger Carrot Dressing

Colorful food is fun to eat, and dressing makes it delicious!

My college years were salad glory days.  Our dining hall made some pretty incredible food, all things considered, but the salad bar was the stuff of legends.  It had spinach, iceberg lettuce, soy beans, tofu, little baby corns, carrots, olives, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, boiled eggs, hummus, and on and on and on.

It was popular to take two large bowls, fill one with veggies and dressing and use the other as a lid and shake the salad up for an even distribution of dressing and salads.  Like a McSalad Shaker, only big, and with more than three ingredients.  

While most people used a two handed approach to shaking the salads, I distinctly remember having a cross country teammate who bragged that he could shake these bowls with one hand... and he could. I was impressed.

However, his bragging about his salad shaking ability (shaking what his mama gave him as he put it) often prompted competitions of machismo which inevitably resulted in the other competitor dropping salad everywhere.  Our poor dining hall workers.

These days, I wouldn't be nearly as impressed with the size of his hands or his salad shaking abilities, because for a few months, I worked with a guy whose hands were the size of kleenex boxes.  He could probably palm a basketball the same way I can palm a softball.

As I was going to say, before I so rudely interrupted myself with reminiscing is that post-college, I never thought I would be able to make salads nearly as well as I did in college due to a lack of an appropriate salad bar.  

I don't know about you, but I don't think the 8 foot by 8 foot kitchen shared by four women in my first post college home wasn't exactly conducive to industrial sized salads.  I pretty much gave up salading altogether.

That was until I started reading food blogs about a year ago, and I noticed recipes for salads.  And the recipes weren't just dump everything into a bowl and shake.  It was actually a thoughtful combination of a reasonable number of ingredients.  "Self, you can do that," I thought to myself, and I could.

I didn't have to buy the entire produce section, just enough ingredients to make me a healthier person, and the rest could be rounded out with things I already had on hand.

This salad comes close to one that I would have eaten in college.  Just a basic bowl of crisp delicious veggies, with the crunchy addition of uncooked ramen.  It's really the dressing that makes this a salad worth sharing.  Rather than being primarily cream or vinegar based, this one is actually aromatic based, so its a really unique flavor.  The dressing is a combination of onions, garlic, carrots, ginger, fish sauce, vinegar and sesame oil pulsed together until it becomes a sauce.  The flavor is what would happen if ceasar dressing and ponzu sauce got married and had babies, but in a good way.

Be warned, you will want to brush your teeth after this one.

Like all salads, the best way to eat this would actually be to add some meat to the salad, but for the purpose of the post, I kept it simple.  I hope you enjoy!

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Spinach Salad with Ginger Carrot Dressing

by Hannah Rounds May-1-2014

Enjoy a delicious salad with an aromatics based dressing

Ingredients

• 2 Carrots - Finely Grated- Divided
• 1 Red Onion- Finely Sliced- Divided
• 1 Clove Garlic- Pressed
• 1.5 Inches Ginger Peeled
• 1 Teaspoon Fish Sauce
• 2 Tablespoons Sesame Oil
• 1-2 Teaspoons Rice Vinegar
• Up to 2 Tablespoons Water
• 3 Cups Spinach
• 1 Yellow Bell Peppers- Diced
• 1/2 Cucumber- Thinly Sliced
• 1 Package Uncooked Ramen Noodles

Instructions

1. In a food processor combine 1/2 of carrots, red onion, garlic, ginger, fish sauce, sesame oil and vinegar. Pulse until smooth. Add water if necessary.2. Toss vegetables with dressing and enjoy

Details

Prep time: 14 mins Cook time: 1 mins Total time: 15 mins Yield: 2 Servings

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Mexican Cucumber Salad

A refreshing salad with a hint of heat.

Do you know what was trendy when I was in college? Water bottles (#WatBot). We were all trying to save the Earth one refill at a time.  And the fact that I lost about fifteen water bottles over the course of four years? A small price to pay for a more sustainable future... I guess.

These days, I just drink my water straight from a glass (or if I'm in the mood for snazzy water I add cucumber, lemon, and basil to a pitcher that I keep in the fridge), and every time I take a sip of water, I feel downright self righteous about the whole thing.  I'm improving my health, I'm not causing the Earth any harm, my skin is glowing, and everything is right with the world.

Now, what if you could take that water drinking feeling and apply it to food?  Enter this cucumber salad.  Of course, eating salad is a great way to serve penance for your food sins, but that's not what this salad is about.  Nor is about shoving as many antioxidants into your mouth as possible (that's what a chia-acai-blueberry-coffee smoothie is for).  Moreover, its not even about paleo one-upmanship.  This is just a refreshing, feel good salad.

The salad is nothing more than thinly sliced cucumbers that are lightly pickled in lemon juice and salt, tossed with a little olive oil, some cilantro, a touch of sugar for sweetness, and jalapenos and red pepper flakes for spice.  It's simple, and its delicious, the perfect balance of sweet, sour and spicy for a late spring day.

The inspiration for this salad came from the Food Charlatan, and I loved her version. However, I felt that the salad needed just a little bit of sweetness, and I actually preferred the lemon over the lime (I discovered the lemon on accident because the Limes at the grocery store felt like little golf balls, so I purchased luscious, ripe, aromatic lemons instead).

This salad keeps for at least three days in the fridge (it might keep for longer since its basically pickles, but I wouldn't know since we eat it pretty quickly after making it), and for maximum deliciousness I do recommend letting it do its marinating thing in the fridge for a few hours.

With cucumbers selling for about a nickel a piece, I've been making a ton of this salad and eating it as an after run snack.  It sort of feels like edible hydration, and I love it.  Make it today! It's so easy and all the ingredients are normal, so you won't even have to run to the store (unless you have no cucumbers, then you have to wait to make it.)

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Mexican Cucumber Salad

by Adapted from The Food Charlatan April-29-2014

A refreshing salad with a hint of spice.

Ingredients

• 2 Cucumbers- Very Thinly sliced (these should be bendable)
• 1 Lemon Lemon Juice
• 1/2 Teaspoon Salt
• 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
• 2 Teaspoons Sugar
• 2 Jalapenos- Finely Diced
• 1/2 Bunch Cilantro

Instructions

1. Whisk lemon juice, salt, olive oil and sugar. Add finely minced garlic if desired.2. Coat cucumbers, jalapenos and cilantro in the dressing then cover bowl3. Allow salad to marinate at least three hours before serving

Details

Prep time: 10 mins Cook time: 3 hour Total time: 3 hour 10 mins Yield: 6 Servings

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Tabouli Salad

If you thought parsley was a garnish, you've never eaten Tabouli Salad.

Has anyone ever had an experience where they experienced something as an adult which retroactively ruined their childhood.  I had one of those a few months back... Perkins.  Growing up Perkins was sort of a fancy restaurant that we went to with my grandparents or parents after certain events like Piano recitals or basketball games.  (In retrospect, I was a sweaty eleven year old in sweats, so I don't know why I thought of Perkins as fancy).

In my minds eye, Perkins was fancy (the only restaurant from my childhood that had parsley on the plate) and incredibly delicious.  I remember the big juicy burgers and the amazing shakes.

So, when we were driving to Raleigh from Minneapolis, I begged Rob to stop at Perkins for just one meal.  Though he applied to my sensibilities, I insisted. And when we sat down, the table was a little sticky, and there were other crying babies with sticky mouths and the booths were a little sticky too.  My burger was a little overdone, and not really anything special, and I was too carsick to order a shake.

I ruined it.  Perkins is fine, edible, American cuisine, but it was so perfect in my memories that I cannot believe that I would allow myself to sully the past by going into a Perkins restaurant as an adult.

As a parent, I wonder how many more opportunities I will have to retroactively ruin my childhood.  Does the zoo suck? What about water parks?  Are picnics even fun? Is summer really the best season?

(Since I need a little validation, here's a link to someone who had a similar experience to mine).

Even though Perkins is ruined for me, I will still hold some memories dear.  Like the time my cousin Bjorn tried to convince me that if I ate the parsley on my Omlette plate it would kill me, and I ate it and didn't die.  Afterwards, I asked my mom if parsley was edible, and she said something about edible garnishes like rose petals (which I took to mean no).

It turns out that parsley is not just great for garnishing plates at large chain diners, it actually has a great flavor too.  I've eaten it in stuffed chicken, on pastas and other Italian dishes, but one of the best uses for parsley is in cold salads especially this Tabouli Salad.

I made this salad since I've made a public commitment to not buying more rice until our 20 lbs of couscous is used up, but I once again have found that this is actually a dish worth eating and sharing.  Couscous is arguably best eaten cold when the grains have the opportunity to show off their pearl like texture rather than taste sort of weirdly gritty.  This tabouli salad is light on the palate, citrusy, quick to fix and overall delicious.  I hope you enjoy this (however, if you are going to buy couscous consider a small 1-2lb bag).

On an unrelated note, Littlest has two teeth, but they are just barely poking through so no pictures just yet.

Tabouli Salad

by Hannah Rounds

This tabouli salad is the perfect summertime side. With cold couscous's pearly texture taking center stage accented by herbacious parsley and zesty lemon

Details

Prep time: 15 mins Cook time: Total time: 15 mins Yield: 6 Servings

Ingredients

• 1 Cup Couscous
• Approximately 2 Cups Boiling Water
• 3 Cloves Garlic pressed (or minced)
• 1 bunch Parsley Chopped
• 3 Roma Tomatoes Diced
• 3 Green Onions Finely sliced
• 1 Lemon's worth Lemon Juice
• 1/2 Teaspoon Salt
• 1/2 Teaspoon Pepper
• 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil

Instructions

1. Pour water on couscous and allow the couscous to absorb the water. 2. Allow couscous to cool for a few minutes. 3. Add lemon juice, olive oil and garlic to couscous and mix thoroughly 4. Add salt and pepper until you like the flavor of your couscous. Then add the rest of your ingredients and mix thoroughly. 5. Set salad aside for at least 30 minutes. You can store this in your fridge for several days.

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Pita Bread

Warm pita bread- fresh from the oven. Delicious and actually easy to make!

I did it! I actually created a baked good that is worthy of sharing on this blog!  Okay, I did make these pretzels and this grapefruit quick bread but those don't count because sugar hides a multitude of sins (except gluttony).

This pita bread is actually quite easy to make and the hands on time is minimal, but it is about a day and half long project and requires storing the dough in the fridge, so be sure you clear out space before you embark on this journey.  You might also consider bringing some friends along for the ride.  I brought Littlest. He ate frozen peas while I mixed the dough, and by the time he finished his peas, I was done with the hands on part for the day.  The next day, he took a nap and I finished the pitas.

The inspiration for these came from a repin of a recipe that is no longer available on Damn Delicious but I'm linking there anyways because that is some good food (or at least good food photography which I appreciate more every day).  She apparently used to have a recipe for a pulled pork Gyro, which is a great idea because really who knows how to cook lamb.  Not to mention that's like $27 a pound around here (possibly slight exaggeration, they don't actually sell it at the two closest grocery stores, so I wouldn't really know the price).

Anyhow, the Pin inspired me to make homemade pitas, and for once in my life it worked.  I had to adapt this recipe from Smitten Kitchen because my first few didn't turn out like I would have liked.

Once I got the technique down, the pitas poofed beautifully with a pocket of steam and a single slice yielded that traditional pocket that just waits to be stuffed with all kinds of Greek goodness (or lets be honest here, turkey and Sriracha work nicely too).

Deb of Smitten Kitchen compares the process of making these to the process of making pizza dough, but I disagree somewhat.  If you've ever done the "wet dough" technique associated with artisan bread in 5 minutes a day (sorry no link, to lazy and I'm not Amazon affiliate so there's really no point in my Googling this on your behalf) its more like that.  The basic difference is that with pizza dough, the rise really isn't that important, but with pita bread the rise is very important.

Also, before you start you're going to need some essential tools.

1. Large 2 Quart Mixing Bowl (Ice cream buckets work too)
2. Rolling Pin
3. Plastic Wrap

Homemade Pita Bread

by Hannah Rounds

Pita Bread- It's like a carb pocket ready to be filled with Greek goodness

Details

Prep time: 1 hour Cook time: 4 mins Total time: Yield: 6 Full Pitas

Ingredients

• 3 Cups +1/2 Cup for sprinkling Flour
• 1.3 Cups + A few teaspoons for sprinkling Warm Water
• 2 Tablespoons Sugar
• 2 Teaspoons Yeast
• 1 Teaspoon Salt
• 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil

Instructions

1. Mix water, yeast and sugar and allow yeast to proof ten minutes. 2. Add three cups flour, salt and olive oil and mix well. Then knead the dough briefly (2-3 minutes) and allow dough to rest 10 minutes 3. After resting, flour surface generously and begin kneading the dough. You may find that the dough gets too dry or to sticky. Add more water when the dough is too dry or more flour when its sticky. Knead for about five minutes 4. Oil a bowl and put dough in the bowl to rest. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for at least eight hours (but don't ignore my next instruction)5. For the first four hours of the rise, punch the dough down about once per hour. 6. When you are ready to make the pitas, flour a large surface, then grab a chunk of dough and make a ball about the size of a tennis ball. Flatten the ball into a disk (about the size of a CD) 7. Cover the disk in oiled plastic (reuse the covering of the bowl) and then repeat for all 6 pitas. 8. Allow dough to rest under the plastic for about 10-20 minutes. 9. Using a floured rolling pin on a floured surface roll out on pita disk at a time. The dough should be thin but not see through. Put the flat dough on a plate to rest. Generously rub the dough with water. If the dough starts to tear, you screwed up and you should start back on step 6 with that particular ball of dough. 10. Heat oven and a baking tray to 475 (ie put the baking tray in the oven while it preheats) 11. Place one pita on the hot baking tray and bake for four minutes and 15 seconds (basically for 45 seconds after the dough poofs, but the pita shouldn't be brown yet). 12. If you resist eating it right away, it's nice to cover these with a clean tea towel

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